Musical Influence

Today I was reading an email from the Songwriting Tips newsletter. It was about how musicians who have some of formal training might get stuck in a this mindset that a song HAS to have a certain form or be a specific way. However, Shamir (the author) also goes on to say that non-musicians who write music will not be limited in this way, and I disagree..to an extent at least.

I think anyone who listens to music at all or really anyone who isn’t deaf has been musically influenced. Rhythm, harmonies, scales must all be naturally embedded in people from their environment. Even people with absolutely no musical training can ‘feel’ that there is something weird about non-western scales, or African rhythms, etc. I actually think that people who learn about different musical systems and know that they are biased for certain ones will be more able to consciously try to get around their predispositions.

Anyway, here’s Elegie played by Rachmaninov himself. What I’m listening to at the moment. =)